Each year a significant number of people, especially health care workers, become infected with blood-borne diseases through the inadvertent stick of a hypodermic needle or other types of needle. A needle stick can lead to a very serious disease. In this connection, because needle sticks provide direct access to the venous systems of individuals, it is possible for a person to contact serious diseases such as AIDS or Hepatitis B through the inadvertent needle stick. The most common times that these needle sticks occur are when the hypodermic needle is being prepared for disposal and during and after actual disposal of said needles. Thus, medical and waste disposal personnel are exposed to the serious risk of injury, infection, disease and even death due to the contamination of medical instruments such as hypodermics that are known in the industry as “sharps.” There are many well documented cases of injuries caused by hypodermic needles or “sharps” even while the “sharps” are encased during transportation to a waste site and during the process of destroying or burying the waste. Hypodermic needles have caused injuries in landfills and the needles have been known to wash up on beaches. As long as the needle remains sharp, it is capable of causing injury and infection.
Heretofore the main method of disposing of hypodermic needles has been to deposit the needles in thick-walled plastic containers immediately after use. The containers are then sent to waste processing sites where they are typically incinerated. However, prior to containment, sharps and hypodermic needles may injure or infect individuals attempting to insert the needles into the container, and throughout the process the container remains very susceptible to puncture. There are also several potential health hazards associated with incineration of hypodermic needles due to the toxic byproducts of incineration. Furthermore, the problem remains that the hypodermic needles may escape the medical waste disposal system, exposing many people to health risks.
There have been numerous attempts in the prior art to produce small, light weight needle disposing apparatus that could easily be used by health care professionals. These include U.S. Pat. No. 4,628,169 (Chung Ling), U.S. Pat. No. 48,773,934 (Spinello), U.S. Pat. No. 5,138,124 (Kirk) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,212,362 (Burden).
All of these devices use electrical energy to destroy needles. However, they destroy only a portion of the needle while it remains on the hypodermic. In these prior methods the needle is basically placed in a machine which contains two electrodes. The electrodes make contact with the needle at two different points. Electric current flows through the needle and since the needle is made of stainless steel, it has very high resistance. Thus, the needle heats and disintegrates. This process is almost instantaneous. However, with each of the prior devices a red hot stub is left behind. This stub can cause injury to a person by pricking them, or if touched shortly after disintegration of the needle it can burn them. The license agencies within this area still consider this little stub on the hypodermic as a sharp, as it can penetrate the skin.
Another problem with the prior art devices is that when an individual places the needle up against electrodes, many sparks are formed which can be ejected from the devices causing harm to a user.
A further problem with prior art devices arises from the fact that the entire needle is not fully heated at once. Only the portion between the two electrodes becomes hot enough to be disintegrated. The portion above the top of the electrode becomes warm enough potentially to create an aerosol of any liquid, solid or virus or bacteria left upon the needle. This aerosol may escape the device and become dangerous. Embodiments of the present invention aim to provide a needle disabling device and a method of disabling a needle in which at least some of the abovementioned problems of the prior art are at least partly overcome.
In particular, embodiments of this invention aim to provide a device that will destroy the “sharps” for a hypodermic needle at the point of use. Destroying the hypodermic needle immediately after use greatly reduces the chance of injuries for individuals using the needle, and further, it virtually eliminates the possibility of a person being stuck by the needle in the disposal process or afterward.
Another aim is to provide a device that is easy to use for health care personnel, veterinarians, diabetics, etc. Further aims include providing a device that is portable, battery operable, easy to operate and inexpensive to manufacture.